Were it not for the words "˜how-to'  most of our posts wouldn't have seen the light of day.

How-to instructional video websites take self-learning to another level of comprehension. You can repeat, fast forward and pause through the video instructions to grasp the ins and outs of how something can be done.

It's really great actually; you can teach yourself how to dice an onion or repair an iPod. You can even teach your grandmother how to work with a cash vending machine. Actually, cancel this out. I didn't get it anywhere, though I got quite a few on hacking into one!

Thanks to how-to video websites. There's a huge list out there. There are the front row ones like Youtube, Metacafe and Instructables. There are also our 5 Cool How-To Videos Sites That Don't Suck. But behind them there are some how-to video tutorial websites that are the lesser cousins. Click play and check out these ten.

Wonder How To

Think of Wonderhowto.com as a "˜How to' search engine. The website searches for and indexes thousands of video tutorials and tips from across the web. If the video has an intent to instruct and you can do it yourself after watching it, it qualifies to be on one of the many categories listed on the site. You can join up, amble around in the Community, create playlists, and even submit instructional videos of your own to earn some cash.

MonkeySee

Do you know how to prepare for a hurricane? If you don't, then watch and learn with the video instructions on MonkeySee. The videos in a wide range of categories are made by experts. And you can check out brief profiles of the person who is guiding you.

Trick Life

Trick Life can't compete in the looks department with some of the other sites listed here. But the collection of how-to videos is more than useful. The DIY videos are user contributed and cover categories like Computing, Crafts, Electronics, Hobbies, Entertainment, Lifestyle, and more.

Mindbites

Mindbites is positioned as a marketplace where you can create and sell instructional videos. That's why you will see most of the videos with a price tag. Preview lessons are free. But fortunately the video service also has a large free collection. The video lessons cover categories like Business, Language & Travel, Children & Parenting, along with various other DIY stuff.

Graspr

The instructional video website has neatly collected videos (20,000 filtered videos across 19 categories) on specific topics from Arts & Crafts to Home Improvement. Gadget freaks might like the Consumer Electronics section. You can sign-in and even pin your own notes to the videos and share it with others. Graspr's Scene feature, lets you jump straight to the parts of a video that interest you most. Similar videos can be bunched into Collections.

Common Craft

Not strictly a pure 'how-to' site, it gives short and simple video explanations which otherwise might require you to read quite a few lines. The videos are also unique in the way they use paper cut-outs to give out the how and the whys. The video instructions aren't for the know-nothings by any means. Even the learned can learn a lot from the way the answers break down the complex into the simple. Don't know shit about Augmented Reality? See it here. The videos are kept under four main categories - Green, Money, Society, and Technology. You can also purchase them for your own use or for your organization.

Teacher Tube

Teacher Tube is an online instructional video site with a focus on learners, teachers, and schools. That's why all the videos are educationally relevant. Teacher Tube is a great platform for educators to create little videos for their students to supplement other forms of learning. Videos can also be downloaded for offline viewing.

WatchKnow

Continuing with educational how-to videos, WatchKnow is a quality website with 19,185 videos sourced from the above site as well as YouTube, SchoolTube, and GoogleVideo. All that is put in a directory that's over 3,000 categories deep. For instance, the Life Skills category has sub Categories like Leadership, Manners and Etiquettes, Confidence, Coping with Loss, Clothing and Wardrobe etc. The site's excellent design (there's even an age filter with the video search) makes it worth a bookmark.

How Do I [No Longer Available]

This one is a simple Google Custom Search engine with an offbeat URL (and difficult to remember). The custom search pulls instructional video tutorials from websites that are indexed by Google. So, it's useful as a shortcut if you don't want to trawl through a normal Google search.

WatchDoIt

WatchDoIt combines an internet wide search for how-to videos with its own hosted ones. So, you get the best of both worlds in most of the DIY video categories you can think of. There's even one on Politics. After a free registration, you can even submit your own.

These ten of the lesser known how-to websites are ample proof that people like to give away knowledge of their unique skills. This is the best thing about the web. If you also want to put on a teacher's hat, make a how to video and spread it around. Also let us know about any lesser known DIY video website that's waiting to be discovered.

Image: kodomut